For someone who’s had a passive disinterest in most hi-fi shows based on what previous exposure I’ve had, I can honestly say I went to the High End show with only a modicum of expectation. Compounded by the fact that many if not most systems would be subject to “show conditions”, and with it being my first ever trip to Munich, I tempered my heart and prepared for two days of being underwhelmed.
I was so wrong.
Let’s talk about those “conditions”…
Where else in the world would I be able to casually bump into Michael Lavorgna, shake his hand and tell him to his face how much I enjoy his “Lovely Recordings”? Where else can you walk into a room and hear Mark Lanegan’s “Sphinx” from Black Pudding as the first song of the show (thanks to Sean Casey from Zu)? Where else could I share a U-Bahn carriage with Aesthetix’s Jim White and his son Ozzy and chat about Munich being the only show they always attend and have done so for the last 10 years? Where else would I get to meet Joe Roberts of Sound Practices/Silbertone fame and spend half an hour consumed in conversation not limited to the joys of the Garrard 301 relative to the Lenco, the hazards of practising the blues in your bedroom, and the general decline in the quality of Amsterdam’s marijuana compared to the early 80’s? (Joe seemed to know a lot about the latter.) Where else could I talk to Thomas Schick about the merits of the Commonwealth relative to his still-in-development Schick 14? Where else is there to hear the Kronos Pro in not one, but four different systems (Goebel Epoque Ref/CH, Nagra/Wilson, Absolare/Rockport and VAC/Von Schweikert)? Where else could I listen to the EMT950, the Thales TTT-Slim II, the SME, the Kuzma, the Döhmann, the Reed, the Kondo Ginga, replinthed TD124’s and 301’s and the Primary Control? Where else would I get to hear the Stax SR-007 Mk II, the Audeze LCD-4 and LCD-XC, the Abyss AB-1266 Phi and Diana (which I really liked) all within spitting distance of one another? Where else could you see people of all ages, nationalities and genders sit down and listen to music? Where else could I go to dinner and enjoy a fantastic Thai meal (on Friday) and Indian meal (on Saturday) in the company of some of the nicest, most down-to-Earth guys (audio-nerds) you could ever meet? Where else in the world can you spend two days listening to the greatest collection of assembled hi-fi trophy systems and not hear a single instance of either Diana Krall or Eva Cassidy?
And those systems?
Well, first the ones I didn’t get to hear. I had hoped Noble’s line of IEMs might be at the show but either I missed their booth (very possible in Munich) or they didn’t attend. Queued a couple of times to hear Final Audio Design’s Sonorous X but their booth was really busy. Would have liked to hear the Gryphon stuff but the two times I went in not a single note of music was playing. Hoped the Living Voice room might have played the NeoDio Origine CD player rather than the Canary Audio CD-300, but they didn’t despite have two Origine’s in the same room. Would have loved to have heard one of the Acoustical Systems cartridges, but they were all on static display along side the Apolyt and new phono stage, the Evocator. Would have been great to hear Graham/Chartwell’s LS3/5a but they were only playing the LS3/5, which aside from being “better sounding” isn’t the reason I would choose them over the LS3/5a. Telos Audio was showing its Grounding Noise Reducer and giving technical demonstrations, but was unable to hear a before/after demo, despite the GNR being used in the Absolare suite. Didn't hear a single Tech Das, for some reason, and being a newbie, didn’t realise the Marriot was its own thing, so didn’t get to hear anything there, sorry.
Potential? Thought the Thomas Mayer/Primary Control room with Wolf von Langa’s Audio Frame Chicago model had a lot of it. I listened to a Neil Young track that was really convincing in terms of the force applied to the acoustic guitar and the delineation of individual up-down strokes, but wasn’t quite as coherent in the mid-low bass. Stenheim is a brand I’ve wanted to hear for a while, but despite showing their Reference Ultime with Wadax’s Atlantis Transport, Server and DAC failed to connect for me for whatever reason. Possibly a mismatch of amplification? That also seemed to be the case in the Kaiser Acoustics/Kondo suite, in which I thought the Kawero Classic C3 showed promise but the G-1000/Kagura seemed to not quite give the sort of dynamics and resolution the speaker could be capable of. Living Voice showed the Vox Palladian and Palladian Basso (powered by their own 500W MOSFET amps) and also seemed short on dynamics, despite scaling quite well and being quite coherent for a 5-way, and came across as overly insipid and saccharine. I’ve had LV OBX-RW’s in the past, and have a great deal of respect for Kevin Scott. Despite the claims to the contrary, the OBX’s needed a lot more power than their on-paper specifications suggested, and though I wanted to like the Vox Palladian/Basso system for what it did well, there wasn’t enough force and tension in the music to be really convincing. But hey, that’s just me, on that day, in a packed room, off-centre, and y’know, under “show conditions”.
My favourite rooms?
Zellaton showed their Stage, a 2.5-way that is possibly my new dynamic speaker crush (sorry YG). With an amp and pre from YS Sound (who I’d never heard of), a Reed Muse 3C turntable, a small village of Schnerzinger cables, power distributors and Giga Protectors, I loved the way it dealt with smaller, more gossamer sounds, and had a coherence, suppleness and vitality that never got edgy or hard. They also had the Refent Audio Gramophone Unit (who I’ve also never heard of) that looks quite a lot like the Physical Emotions Caeles turntable, but I only got to hear one track before they switched over to the Reed.
Yep, what can I add to the Silbatone/Western Electric room that hasn’t already been said? With Schick’s Commonwealth, Schröder’s Neumann, a DCS Scarlatti feeding Silbatone’s SQ-102 Mk II phono, DAC100 Silver Edition converter, L-101 pre, and bi-amped with a RP-300 Mk II for the mids and highs and a pair of RP30W monos for the two field-coil 4181a 18” drivers in W-cabs, I visited and re-visited several times just to experience the sheer awe of scale, force, ease and sublimity that the Mirrorphonic 3 (a half-sized version of the 2) conferred to every piece of music they played. Talking to a few in attendance, the 12a/13a combo of 2014 still rates very highly, but Joe Roberts is adamant the Mirrorphonic is still his favourite, and who I am to disagree with a man that’s heard every single piece of vintage WE gear ever to find its final resting place at Silabtone HQ?
I absolutely loved Sven Boenicke’s little W5 paired with his own newly revised e2 integrated that has eschewed its original Class A/B output stage for a Class D design (!!), albeit with a Holborne no-gain input buffer, a purist volume control with only ever a single resistor in the signal path, a 2:1 step-up transformer combined with the switching output stage producing 400W into 8ohms. My Lord In Heaven, this little system paired with CAD 1543 MkII DAC and Transport, with a slew of Ground Controls, was seriously one of the most expectation-defying systems I heard. The W5 is tiny, with a single 3” widebander mated to a 5.25” long-throw woofer on the side, all with 1st order crossovers, but for me, at least, one of the most enjoyable, weighty, punchy, dynamic and vivid systems I heard. The W5 is not inexpensive (3500 CHF), but as a second/office/apartment system option where space is limited, I can’t think of anything else I’d be happier with. Still my most preferred small speaker regardless of price.
All the above three rooms from Zellaton, Silbatone and Boenicke had me return multiple times, despite attempts to bask in the other SOTA systems present. But the one I returned to most? Are my biases that transparent? Flyer’s and Stavros’ Aries Cerat suite, with the Symphonia’s I heard several weeks ago dragged from Brussels to a tiny but actually okay sounding room, was - for the things I most value in reproduction - still the high-water mark for me personally. And why? Though I experienced many emotions and thought many thoughts throughout the weekend, the AC room was the only one that most explicitly articulated the intent and visceral sense of force and touch of individual musicians crafting and emoting via their breath, fingers, hands and feet. Having just heard Manicini’s Pink Panther theme in another room featuring tubes and horns, I returned to hear the exact same rendition via the AC stuff and was shocked - shocked I tell you - at how the materiality of the vibes that follow in unison with the piano during the intro were rendered as individuated solid bars of aluminium played (not ‘hit’) with little rubber mallets wound in cord all with their own dynamic volition and sense of expression that was completely glossed over in the previous system. The propagation of energy was also suspended in space in a way that was totally different to the piano, the triangle, bass and hi-hat. There was just a much more palpable sense of musicianship in every note, and when the sax came in around thirteen seconds, I got more of a sense of the bio-mechanical mechanism of diaphragm, throat and tongue shaping each phrase as if the saxophonist was trying to create art rather than merely make sound. I tried very hard to like a lot of supposedly very good, very well-respected systems during those two days, but none came close to the Aries Cerat Talos Limited Edition phono stage, Kassandra Signature DAC, Impera II Reference pre, Concero 65 monos and Symphonias. At least, not for me, and not with regard to my sensibilities, preferences and biases, contextualised within the limits of my perception, for whatever that might be worth.
Will I go next year? Maybe. Munich is an amazing city - people on bikes wait at intersections for lights, pedestrians wait to cross the road, people on the U-Bahn wait to get on until the people getting off get off, people are okay talking English with you and there’s plenty more great restaurants to uncover. I also didn’t have a single bratwurst, so that alone must be remedied.
It was also fun meeting User211, Jazzhead and Bonzo75, as well as spending a really enjoyable evening with Morricab and his beautiful family. Much appreciation toward the kind and gracious hours I spent with Stavros and Flyer, who continue to impress me with their straight-up, no-BS approach to music, life and hi-fi. To those I did not meet, well, there’s always next year, right?
Best,
853guy